FOR the hundreds of workers at Black & Decker it will be hard to see a silver lining in the dark cloud which hangs over them today.

But a special team made up of key education, local government and business figures is already planning how to lift the gloom which has engulfed the town.

Dr John Bridge, chairman of regional development agency One NorthEast, is determined to make a special case for extra Government funding when he goes to London in the next two weeks, while cash from the agency's rapid reaction fund will help initially with counselling, support work, and retraining possibilities.

"We need to make absolutely sure that people in London recognise the seriousness of the situation," said Dr Bridge.

"I think if we put resources into the situation quickly and they get some quality help then there is hope. We can't let things drag on."

It is decisive co-ordinated action which has already helped thousands of redundant workers in an increasingly fragile North-East economy.

Special task forces comprising business leaders, learning and skills experts and local government figures have seen the fortunes of areas which were once ghost towns turned dramatically around.

Kingsley Smith, chief executive of Durham County Council, chaired the East Durham Task Force which found thousands of jobs for redundant miners, as well as the task force at Japanese electronics company Fujitsu.

Fujitsu's Newton Aycliffe microchip plant closed in 1998 with the loss of 570 jobs.

He said that the key to finding work for 98 per cent of its redundant staff came by focusing on three goals - finding alternative employment, trying to sell the plant as a going concern and assessing the impact of the closure on the wider economy.

Three working groups were set up to push the objectives through and the momentum was kept up by regular meetings.

"The initial feeling was one of just being devastated, these were hundreds of people who had mortgages and family commitments and suddenly they found they no longer had a job," said Mr Smith. "But the mood changed as the thing progressed and we got more and more people into employment."

Fujitsu's support was essential to the task force's success by setting up a job centre and allowing other agencies to help retrain workers at the site, something Black & Decker is expected to allow.

Workers were found courses, often in computer skills or in setting up their own businesses, and the task force contacted other companies in the region which they felt might benefit from the skills of Fujitsu's workforce.

About 95 per cent found other jobs and the task force even managed to sell the site to microchip manufacturer Filtronic as a going concern.

It may bring little comfort to workers at Black & Decker today, but the new partnership between local government and council figures means their future may not be as bleak as they thought.

Mr Smith added: "The main thing is to try and give people confidence in themselves.

"There are jobs out there that they can get. Initially that's very hard to believe, but as things move on and people do find employment, they can believe it."